The basic faith of the Catholic Church

I Believe: Line by Line Through the Creed
by Christopher Hayden
(Veritas, €12.99/£10.20)

Fr Christopher Hayden is a curate in the parish of Carna down in Ferns. His background, however, is in New Testament studies and biblical spirituality.

This book is an attempt to make the basic statement of the Creed come alive for the ordinary reader. Older readers may recall a very similar book by Ronald Knox, The Creed in Slow Motion, once very popular. Both books have the aim of asking the reader to slow down, to take their time, and not to understand too quickly.

But first a small lacuna in the book. To fully try and understand the Creed as it now stands, apart from the circumstances that gave rise to it, is to leave our understanding incomplete.

What we have here is the Nicene Creed, the outcome of the Council of Nicaea. There exists also “The Apostles Creed” and “The Athanasian Creed” (which nowadays is not attributed to Athanasius but to a writer in southern Gaul before the 8th Century).

The latter is so long and so complicated that, while it functions as a credal statement, it is not easily used in the liturgy and has dropped away from use.

The Apostles Creed, which still features in some of our childhoods, is not truly “apostolic”; it comes from the 3rd or 4th Century AD. It is a simple statement of faith, but does avoid the controversies which theologians managed to create over later centuries. This historical background (and more) is important in a full realisation of the Creed.

In a series of brief chapters, Fr Hayden discusses the clauses of the Creed in a series of reflections, which readers can mediate on in the light of their own experience.

This makes it an excellent book to read on a daily basis, as a source of deeper understanding.

The concentration on a few words at a time allows for a greater understanding to emerge over the whole reading. Prayer groups and other collectives would also find it most useful to their discussions.

To understand the Creed is to understand the degree zero of Christianity. With so much confused thought around today, this would be no bad thing.